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Are Third-Party Wii Games Finally Coming Into Their Own?
Gravy Monkey writes "It's not too difficult to criticize the quality of many third-party Wii games — whether they're unique titles, bad licenses or lazy ports to the new system. However, will this change as more quality third-party games appear on the Wii? Recently, Wiiware title 'Lost Winds' picked up some great reviews, as did the Blastworks game. The recent review of a new game called Order Up on IGN caught my attention because they praised it as the way all casual games should be made. Is this the beginning of a new era for Wii games where quality casual games from third parties manage to grab the attention of both mainstream and hardcore gamers alike, instead of being a console where only first-party titles sell?"
Yes! I didn't even Steven Spielberg could make games, though the combination of him and EA was remarkable.
Creative gameplay, excellent controls, and terrific physics, it alone has given me hope for third party titles.
.. maybe there should have been some Spielberg themed levels.. chucking balls at sharks or flattening Nazis with blocks would have helped boost sales.
I would say that any company who tries to put in an honest effort has the ability to release a good game. The problem is, is that a lot of companies would rather just do a quick and dirty job and cash in on the vast numbers of people who bought the Wii. However, there's one reason I have only ever owned a Nintendo console. The games that are good, are really good. Nintendo, and other third party publishers most of the time can throw together a good number of really great games. For any of their consoles, there have probably been about 15 really great games. Which is more games than I've ever owned for any one console. I don't care if there's 938 games for my console, if 930 of them are complete crap, or even just mediocre.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Why spend the time to make them better if people will buy the crap anyway? There will always be the occasional good 3rd party game from a real company like capcom and stuff. The rest will be for the idiots.
Lost Winds was fantastic, I can't wait for the sequels.
If you haven't seen it, it makes great use of the Wii "wand," it's one of those games that'll only work on the Wii until the other companies start copying that functionality. I highly recommend it.
It's was very short, but then that makes it a manageable download, and it was only $10.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
If you have to make a post asking about whether or not third-party games are finally coming into their own... that's a pretty good pointer that you have a problem with third-party games. I don't recall anyone ever asking, "Are the Atari Jaguar third-party games finally coming into their own?!"
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Excellent controls, eh? The game had horrible problems when using the IR sensor, half the time when doing the 'remove a block' game types, it isn't able to determine where you're pointing, so the cursor will flicker erratically across the screen. That's my experience with the game, anyway.
Other than that though, the game was quite innovative and entertaining, and I think it's an excellent game for kids as they'll learn to analyze situations and see physics in action.
The headline for this ars article focuses on the ps3 gaining ground, but what is amazing is how dominant nintendo has become. It just doesn't make sense for any developer to ignore what is going on and I think we are going to see some phenomenal developments for the wii in every aspect.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
It sounds like you have a problem with your sensor bar. There are two common issues/fixes:
1. The sensor bar is too far back on the television. When you move the remote in certain directions, it can no longer "see" the IR LEDs. Try moving the sensor bar such that the black "glass" (for lack of a better term) is protruding over the edge of your TV.
2. There are other IR sources in your room. Some lightbulbs cause this problem, as do decorative lights like Christmas lights. (Dude, what are those still doing up in August?!?! :-P) Try turning off the lights in the room (especially decorative lights) and see if that helps. If it does, use the "Sensitivity" setting in the Wii settings menu to adjust how well the remotes "see" IR.
Hope that helps! :-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Third party games can be great on the Wii, but most (read as 95%) seem to think that in order to make a good game on the Wii they have to make everything motion controlled. Look at one of Nintendo's best games for the Wii, Super Smash Bros Brawl, it didn't use the motion sensor hardly at all, yet I think it is much more enjoyable than mindlessly waving the Wii remote around like most third party games make you do.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Good games for the Wii have been around for a while. They just don't get a lot of attention. Certainly, there are the first party games, but -- while they are high quality -- I actually find them to be less interesting than some of the third party titles.
Let me pull a few examples from my shelf/drive:
That's just what I can remember off the top of my head. If you include second part titles, you can also throw in some great games like Excite Truck, Super Paper Mario, and several other strong contenders. A few other third party titles I'm excited about that I haven't gotten yet include:
Though one interesting problem I've noticed is that third parties tend to price their games WAY too high. Games that cost $20 or less on the PS2 (e.g. The Star Trek game) cost $30 on the Wii. Almost no one values such budget titles that highly. I honestly think that's what happened to Boom Blox as well. Great game, but overpriced for the market. Everyone wants it, no one shells out the dough.
That's probably why Majesco (smartly) slashed prices on Blast Works and Taito decided to make Space Invaders: Get Even only 500 points. Of course, the latter is actually a ripoff in disguise, so I imagine the market will get cautious and not buy even the good titles once they're affordable. (Thanks a lump, Taito.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
What happened was that most companies saw the Wii as an "also ran" once again. The XBox barely beat out the Gamecube lastgen (both getting their asses handed to them by the PS2). So, when Nintendo said "less power more immersive", the developers scratched their heads then "ooh"ed and "aah"ed over PS3 and 360 graphics. As with most of the market, they were thinking only of the core market (14-25 males) and what they would bring.
(It should be noted that the DS was only coming into its own right leading up to the Wii's launch, so the whole "it prints money" thing hadn't connected yet.)
Fast forward a year after release. 360's numbers are still looking alright, but Sony can't give away PS3 consoles (which were free with any HDTV purchase above a grand at many stores for a while). Wii, in the mean time, either has already surpassed the 360 in sales or is set to do so in a month or two's time, despite having a year's handicap. Suddenly, developers are going "oh shit" and want to jump on the money train. They see the success of games like Wii Sports (duh, as it's packaged with the Wii), Wii Play, and Rayman Raving Rabbids (which is quite fun) and think "We an pump out a bunch of minigame games". So we get isles of shovelware for Wii Year 2. In this time we get a bunch of good games as well, but it's starting to suffer the same way the PS2 did.
But we're coming up on Year 3 and it seems that a lot of companies are announcing original properties or new titles for the console. We have MadWorld, Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of a New World, The Conduit, and Fatal Frame (4): Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. For the casuals, there are plenty of other enticing options, such as Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party, Wii Music (along with other Nintendo Wii titles), and Dance Dance Revolution: Hottest Party 2. At the same time, the Wii is becoming more than an afterthought. For instance, Rock Band 2 will not be crippled like the original Rock Band Wii was.
I think, though, that Year 3 will not be the year of casuals, as that's more of an over-arching thing, partly because casual gamers are far more likely to buy older titles they haven't played or only rented/borrowed before, whereas "core" gamers are much more likely to stick with new releases. Instead, a trend that I see developing for late Year 3/early Year 4 is ports, either straight or enhanced. We've had Resident Evil 4 and Okami, as well as other titles like House of the Dead (2 & 3). Capcom has announced Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop and Sega has Samba de Amigo. Only two titles, sure, but as Wii sales continue on their steady pace (and stores continue to sell out), more and more developers are going to reach into their catalog of PS2, XBox, and Dreamcast games and grab some of the more popular titles to bring to the Wii. Because the expectations lower, they won't need to spend much time ramping up graphics, and by this point many studios have gotten good with applying the Wii controls. Throw in a bit of extra content here and there, price it at $30 or $40, and you have an easy seller.
Nintendo did have a bad E3 (I mean, wow), but this allows 3rd parties to step up not just for casual gaming, but for the core market as well. Over time some of those casuals will come over to the dark side, spurring "core"
If you look at metacritic 5 of the top 10 games are third party, as are 13 of the top 20. While Nintendo has the plurality of the top games, they don't have a majority.
Of course E3 was bad. It's no secret that since last year E3 is just aimed at the press and investors. Worthwhile announcements have been moved to other events like Tokyo Game Show.
I think developers are still learning how to work with the Wii. Let's not forget that almost all of them were caught with their pants down (hell, even Nintendo didn't expect the success that they've enjoyed) when it came to having content ready for the Wii. At the system launch the only third party that had anything that could be considered a worth-while showing was Ubisoft, and most of those games weren't all that great in my opinion.
Once Wii sales took off for the stratosphere, everyone wanted to get in on the action. The only problem is that a lot of teams had no experience working with the new control system, so this presented a learning curve. It would also take over a year in order to put out something fresh, so old games were ported over to the platform to cash in on its new found success.
Now that developers have had time to see how much of a success the Wii has turned out to be along with becoming accustomed to working with the new controller, I think we'll start to see better games trickle out. Square Enix is still working on the new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals game, which has been in the pipes for a while. I've also been interested in seeing what will come of MadWorld, a game by Sega of all developers that has an interesting art style to say the least. Note that the linked video contains graphic violence and is probably NSFW, which if nothing else probably ensures that the game will do good among the eighteen-and-under and ultra-violence-lover crowds.
A few other posters have already pointed out how Wii-ware games can be quite excellent as well and I think that it Nintendo more aggressively pursued developers as both Microsoft and Sony have, they could acquire more top-notch indie games on their platform as well. Some of the $10 games that you can find on Xbox Live and Sony's PSN (PlayStation Network) provide more fun and enjoyment than some of the $60 boxed games for the systems. The virtual console is also another potential marketplace where we can relive and enjoy older games, but I wish they'd release more of the games that I wanted to play.
I know it's been changed around to focus on press/investors (and subsequently a bunch of developers/producers no longer care), but that doesn't mean you have to have a bad show. Both Sony and Microsoft had decent shows--nothing to get excited over, but they were alright and dropped some nice tidbits (though Microsoft's new Live interface made me laugh a lot, it looks horrible).
Nintendo's was downright bad, though. They could have shown 15 seconds of any one franchise and it would have been tremendous, but the whole thing was just embarrassing and didn't bring to light any new games, just stated ones that were already announced (everyone knew that Animal Crossing Wii was coming at some point).
What? If the game can't tell where you're pointing, it's not the game's fault, it's the Wii's. Do you think every game designer rewrites the code to tell where the pointer is?
As a Wii owner, I'd not planning to buy casual games for it. [..] Most of my casual friends that have a Wii, on the other hand, don't classify any of the games mentioned as "casual". They won't buy this kind of games.
Strange, I always thought that the Wii *was* focussed more on the casual gamer.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
At first I thought it was a problem with the distance, because that can in fact cause a similar type of behaviour. But when sitting at the same distance from the Wii (2 meters), I have no problems with any other game that uses the IR sensor except for Boom Blox, so I'm assuming that they made a mistake in their sensor code somewhere. A way to fix the problem is to point the wii mote away from the sensor bar for a short moment and then slowly aiming it at the sensor bar again. It's a problem that's easily reproduced so I'm almost certain it's a Boom Blox specific problem.
Ummm... then why is it that every decent game out there (and the Wii menu!) can tell you where your Wii remote is pointed and it is only the cheaply made third-party games that cannot?
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Yes, thats right - the same people who brought you Elite (kinda) and Frontier made Lost Winds. Would you expect anything less? They don't exactly have a track record of producing shite and unimaginative games.
Focus on quality
It's simple. The developers need to stop hacking together horseshit and make quality games, but there's also a few things Nintendo needs to do.
If you go casual, just add quality.
I'd be down for some good "casual" games as well. For example, it's been a while since I've seen a Jeopardy game. The Wii is perfect for it and with DLC becoming all the craze, we can now ensure that the content stays fresh. The market is out there! Casual can be fun, but it still requires effort from developers. There is a pattern developing here (hint: quality).
To Nintendo: Improve the online
There's a reason the 360 has the highest attachment rate right now: an average of higher quality releases and Live. Make the online experience reliable (a few games have exhibited the potential) and possibly make it more expansive but reliability is required. I won't go into the irritation that are friend codes because most people already know. You come standard with Wi-Fi, take advantage of it. The fact that people are willing to fork over the ridiculous amount of $100 for wireless on the 360 shows that the online arena is a moneymaker. Good online will definitely help increase attachment rates.
To Nintendo: Stop fucking around and give us a solution to the storage issue
I don't care if it's being "worked on". Fix it. Fix it fast. Unfortunately, you stand to make more money. I don't get the hangup.
You dont have to forget that Nintendo has churned out a load of games the first 1 1/2 years of Wii alsmost every big franchies got a new game. Now only a handful of franchises are left and the development houses need a lot of time to produce even one game for a big franchise. Nintendo never was strong to introduce a new franchise most of theirs are still from the NES days. So yes there is a gap, but it is way worse on the DS due to the developer resources being bound by the WII, and yet under a ton of shovelware there are still 2-3 gems every year really worth looking at even at the DS. Now we face a gap on the Wii from the Nintendo side, but I am sure there are third party games happily to step in once you find them within the ton of Disney, Animal whatever and quick cash in junk. Nintendo will step in again, but I think it wont happen before 2009.
Lost Winds is a nice game but not that great, it has easy puzzles requiring minimal thought* and is way too short (they really should've put an "Episode One" label on it). Its major advantage is that it has some of the prettiest graphics on the WiiWare system. IMO the best game currently on WiiWare is Toki Tori, it's a puzzle game too but it actually has puzzles that require thinking rather than just using the obvious objects with each other and it has a decent length. It merely lacks the hype and graphics to get as much attention as LW gets.
*=In fact it's usually harder to figure out where you're supposed to go from the vague descriptions and lack of a map than how to solve a puzzle in front of you.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
They just don't get a lot of attention.
Which might be explained with them getting very low ratings, half the games you mention score in the lower 60-70/100 region and that region happens to be one that most people avoid because the games in there are junk. Not that there aren't exceptions, every now and then there are games that are great and that the press just doesn't get, but a bunch of 60-70 rated games being the better parts of games for a console isn't exactly a good sign.
A few years ago, a /. user posted a link to a site with a hardcore, unbiased user that independently reviews games and slashes them if they deserve so.
I noticed I agreed on most of his opinions so I use him as a reference anytime I'm looking for new games
Here's the link:
http://www.videogamecritic.net/
Wii Reviews sorted by grades:
http://www.videogamecritic.net/wii_g.htm
From that list, I personally recommend RE4, No More Heroes, Bloom Box, and Bully:SE (if you enjoyed GTA).
Your post was complete biased BS
Resident Evil 4 is quite good too. Having played a few ports of older games that I enjoyed on other systems, like the Prince of Persia title that was ported, I've found the wii-interpreted control scheme fun, if buggy at times, but not necessarily a huge improvement on the core gameplay. With RE4 however, that game really comes into its own with the wiimote. It's just a better game for it. In fact it kind of bums me out that I can't play the new RE5, which looks fun and quite pretty, with the wiimote. It's going to feel alien back on a regular controller.
No More Heroes is also really good. It's fun and damn quirky and one of the first truly ironic and deconstructionist games out there. For a console that is promoted for its less hardcore, more casual gaming environment, No More Heroes sets up most of its humor for the true veteran gamer. Which is all the more ironic I guess.
Boom Blox was also pretty great. Definitely pick that one up. It really surprised me. I mean it is basically Jenga on the Wii, which sounds simple and uninspiring enough, but man that game is fun with friends and alcohol.
The software catalog on the Wii is still pretty lacking, but there are some real gems out there, first and third party. I have to disagree on the Wiiware mentions though. That stuff has been pretty disappointing so far, especially considering what I've seen on PSN/XBLA. I'd kill for Pixel Junk on the Wii.
I've had a similar problem before and found that there were surfaces which were reflecting the signal. CD jewel cases and glass facing for various things like pictures or clocks can do this. Not being an IR technology expert this may in fact be ridiculous but this sure seemed to be the culprit in our case. And not to say there isn't necessarily a problem with your specific wiimote or the game itself, but I can tell you we didn't have those problems playing BB. I've found that not all Wiimote pointing environments are created equal.